'Coming out as gay was the best thing I ever did': Gandalf star and theatre legend Ian McKellen on his bravest decision

The rich, resonant voice fills the room, flowing like vintage wine from a crystal decanter. It is unmistakeably that of Sir Ian McKellen, the theatre legend who became a movie star in his 60s, then an unlikely star of Coronation Street and now reprises one of cinema’s most loved characters in the biggest blockbuster of them all.

When we meet, the 73-year-old McKellen, tall and svelte in a black shirt and jeans, makes a casual greeting sound like a Shakespearian soliloquy.

After a lifetime in theatre, McKellen became a household name, winning millions of new fans as Gandalf the Grey, the wise wizard in The Lord Of The Rings films, and now he returns in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first instalment of Peter Jackson’s £300 million trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s children’s book first published in 1937.

It is McKellen¿s return as Gandalf that has caused feverish twittering amongst Tolkien fans around the world

‘I think people warm to Gandalf because he’s a such a wise character at the heart of one of the greatest stories in literature,’ says McKellen. ‘I originally signed up for Lord Of The Rings because I thought it would be an adventure. And so it has been, but I was always aware they could have got somebody else. I mean, I’m an eccentric English actor, and there’s a lot of us around.’

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His voice is made for theatre, a polished actor’s instrument tinged with his native Northern inflections and a wry, self-deprecating humour. A latecomer to the big screen, gay activist and national treasure, he first found mainstream fame as the mutant villain Magneto in the X-Men films. But as the ancient Gandalf he became a global icon.

‘I have the image of being a classical actor, but I like to step out of that world every so often and turn my hand to a thriller or a fantasy story or pantomime. It’s all acting, after all, just a different approach,’ he says.

In The Hobbit, Martin Freeman — from TV’s Sherlock and The Office — stars as Bilbo Baggins, the hairy-footed hobbit of the Shire. But it is McKellen’s return as Gandalf that has caused feverish twittering amongst Tolkien fans around the world.

After a lifetime in theatre, McKellen became a household name

The film arrives nine years on from the Rings trilogy, the much-delayed production dogged by funding problems, labour disputes and finally the hospitalisation of the director, New Zealander Peter Jackson, in January 2011, with a perforated ulcer.

‘There was a bit of a wait,’ says McKellen with typical understatement — cameras finally rolled on the film in March last year. ‘At one point I was wondering about doing it, especially as it was taking so long, but I felt I’d invested too much in the character for someone else to take it over.’

As production delays dragged on he returned to the stage with an acclaimed world tour in Waiting For Godot, co-starring Patrick Stewart, another British theatre veteran who found his way into films as Magneto’s arch-rival Professor Xavier in X-Men.

‘There’s a lot of comedy in the Hobbit,’ says McKellen. ‘But I’m always doing comedy and I’ve been in pantomime. What I’m most proud of as an actor is how to get a laugh. It requires a certain technique and timing. When it works, it’s wonderful. I’m always embarrassed to say I don’t have a method. If I was asked to write a book on acting it would be a very short one. I don’t quite know how to explain how to do it.

‘Usually the script will tell you what the character is like from the outside, then your job is to get the character inside yourself.

‘What I really like about acting is becoming part of a gang. You have a unique working situation, which involves intense relationships with people you might not see again, but when it’s happening you’re like close friends or lovers.

‘To me it’s life itself. I don’t think there’s ever been a day when I don’t look forward to going to work. It’s about people being emotionally honest in a way you don’t get in any other workplace.

‘Peter Jackson has a wonderful imagination and he’s obsessed by fantasy. In his house he’s got the Hobbit Hole, the set built under the grounds of his house. You go down into his wine cellar and he leans on the wall and it opens into a tunnel and you come to a round door that opens into Bilbo Baggins’s house. Quite extraordinary.’

Known for his versatility, Sir Ian is an astute observer of people¿s habits and foibles

Known for his versatility, Sir Ian is an astute observer of people’s habits and foibles. ‘In trying to become somebody else, you try to get just one aspect of the person you are attempting to play,’ he says. ‘Maybe the timbre of the voice, the way they hold their head, or a gesture. There’s a trick I used to have. I’d follow people in the street and try to walk like them and I believed if I could get the walk I could understand what it was like to be them.’

Born in Burnley in 1939, and raised in Wigan, McKellen’s father Dennis was a civil engineer and lay preacher. Young Ian fell in love with acting at an early age, encouraged by his mother, Margery, an avid theatre-goer. She died of cancer when he was 12, by which time he was a regular in school plays and had found his calling.

He won a scholarship to Cambridge in the late Fifties, where he worked in student productions with fellow undergraduate Derek Jacobi. With no drama school training, he worked with various repertory companies, making his professional debut in A Man For All Seasons in 1961 in Coventry. He joined Lawrence Olivier’s National Theatre Company in 1965. By the Seventies, he was recognised as the leading classical actor of his generation and was showered with theatre awards, including a Tony for his Broadway performance as Salieri in Amadeus (1980).

But his film appearances were sporadic and it was the mid-Nineties before he blossomed on screen with his adaptation of Richard III.

McKellen was given the role of Gandalf soon after X-Men

He was 60 when he made his Hollywood breakthrough in 1998’s Apt Pupil and landed an Oscar nomination for Gods And Monsters, playing an aged James Whale, the British director of Frankenstein.

McKellen was given the role of Gandalf soon after X-Men and spent over a year filming in New Zealand, which he fondly regards as a ‘home from home’.

‘It’s easy to grasp Kiwi society and they’ve got their priorities sorted,’ he says. ‘They’ve made so many social advances, with women at the top in government for a long time, and they got rid of their gay laws long before us.’

McKellen has been a high-profile campaigner for gay rights since he came out, at 49, during a BBC radio interview. He was in the vanguard of openly gay artists and in November 1990, Margaret Thatcher recommended him for a knighthood.

‘It was the last thing she did as Prime Minister,’ recalls McKellen. ‘I was in Paris doing Richard III and was watching TV over breakfast. They had a camera on the door in Downing Street waiting for her to come out for the final time, and at that moment the phone rang and it was No 10 saying you have a knighthood. I took that as a sign things were changing for the better.’

But one of his greatest regrets was never having the chance to tell his parents. His father died in a car crash when he was 24, a week after seeing his son’s West End debut.

‘When I came out, I told my stepmother Gladys, and she just said she had known for years and was glad I wasn’t lying any more,’ he says. ‘Before that, I presumed it would be bad for my career.

‘In the Fifties and Sixties, the life of a gay man was a secret. Homosexuality was illegal, so you didn’t draw attention to yourself. But coming out is the best thing I ever did and I’ve never met a gay person who didn’t think the same.

‘Even now there are young actors who want careers as romantic leading men and the best thing is not to reveal you’re gay. I suppose I used to wonder if I’d be allowed to play Romeo if I came out.

‘Eventually, I thought if you compromise to the extent of lying about yourself, is there any job in the world that’s worth that? I don’t think there is. It’s still a sensitive issue in Hollywood, though.’

But in spite of all the offers, he has never been tempted to move there and has lived in the same Victorian house in Limehouse, in London’s East End, for 30 years.

Next year, apart from continuing with the Hobbit saga and a new X-Men film, McKellen co-stars with Derek Jacobi in Vicious, a TV comedy series about a bickering gay couple sharing a flat in London — the first time they have acted together since university.

But despite a long career filled with accolades, McKellen’s greatest thrill was appearing in Coronation Street in 2005. ‘I’m a huge fan of the show. I think over the years the standard of writing and acting have been remarkably high,’ he says.

His abiding love for the world’s oldest soap goes back to his Northern roots, and playing conman Mel Hutchwright for ten episodes is an experience he recalls with boyish wonder.

‘When I walked back stage at Granada in Manchester and saw one of the characters coming toward me, I was in a panic,’ he says. ‘It was very alarming. I felt the same way people feel when they see famous actors.

‘Going into the Rovers Return and seeing people who have been in that show for 40 or 50 years and being welcomed by them was quite a thrill. I was there as a fan but also had to keep in character. I had a wonderful time. I didn’t feel I was slumming it. In fact, I’d do it again.’